Death Lives Another Day... with a Noir Style: Grim Fandango

I have a long time fascination for adventure games, maybe you can't tell because I haven't been able to review any of them yet in this blog but I have very good memories of games like Monkey Island or Day Of the Tentacle, the genre may have evolved too much beyond the new virtual reality technologies but I still cling to the classic adventure games of the late 90s having Lucasfilm and Tim Schafer as main exponents, in fact Lucasfilm has quite an interesting history of how it joined the world of adventure games (and videogames in general) looking to create a more accessible experience for those who were not familiar with more complex and even at times frustrating works that filled the industry at the time, it took several years to deepen the formula of what was one of its direct competitors: Sierra Entertainment (one of the adventure game giants of those times) and find space in the industry, of course having iconic IPs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones made things easier for Lucasfilm but I prefer to focus n what came later, an absolute flash of brilliance around 1995-1998 when the company was in a black hole after several failures in the market.

3D was starting to gain followers from companies like Sony and their Playstation so Tim Schafer ventured into one of his last games for Lucasfilm Games, one that would take advantage of the new technology while maintaining the charm and excellent designs of 2D adventures like Monkey Island, also Schafer wanted to take advantage of the perspective given by this type of game in third dimension to propose new puzzles to the player. With a Noir aesthetic inspired by Mexican culture and an excellent art direction, one of the most iconic adventure games in memory was born: Grim Fandango.

I can't start talking about this game without first delving into its inspirations in the Mictlan culture and how it treats the underworld in a unique way, here the souls of the dead must be transported in order to reach the afterlife, by definition the souls that have been "good" in the world of the living have priority when it comes to transportation and can last a few hours or days traveling but those who have done nothing more than corrupt in their lives have a journey of months or maybe years ahead of them, this is where we are introduced to the concept of travel agents, the dead who manage the transportation of souls to the afterlife functioning almost identical to the travel agencies we have in the earthly world. There we are introduced to Manuel "Manny" Calavera, one of the worst travel agents in his company who embarks on a series of adventures in order to get better customers and win the game to his colleagues, this is the beginning of a premise that, thanks to its charm and good presentation of the dialogues, manages to form one of the best remembered adventure games of the 90s.

I want to start talking about the setting because it is the first thing that stands out in the first minutes of the game, we get right into an environment with the theme of the "Dia de los muertos" celebrated in Mexico and with character designs inspired by the art of Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada, From there Tim Schafer created a surreal underworld combining genres as varied as gangster movies and the Noir theme with dyes to the cinema of the 30s (with films like Casablanca or The City of Lost Children) making the game had a unique and unmistakable aesthetic from the first moment we entered the world of Manny Calavera.

The plot is perhaps its best attribute and it uses many of the elements of its graphic design to its advantage, creating tension in a world where corruption and malpractice are what you see on a daily basis and that puts Manny in a lot of outlandish situations while he is looking for a way to boost himself in the travel agent business and finally make it to the afterlife, It is also true that the comic moments are not lacking in this adventure and it is not surprising coming from the same creators of works such as Monkey Island, and although the dialogues can be said to be scarce for an adventure game yes that every talk we have will be more than a simple procedure in the game thanks to a cast of characters with endearing personalities and our protagonist. The story, while simple and even at some points not too inspired, serves as a springboard to discover the best of the game, the setting and its characters.

Is there anything I can complain about in this game? Perhaps the controls are set up in a way that makes it very difficult to find a way to play them at ease, its camera changes as well as its way of interacting with objects (something that the remastered version solves) are perhaps its two biggest weaknesses, Lucasfilm Games wanted to experiment with the way we interact with 3D objects and I can say that it didn't work out well, the mechanics slow down an experience that could be streamlined with the right controls. (The remastered version by Doble Fine Studios solves this problem by transforming the gameplay to a much simpler and story-focused Point & Click). The puzzles are perhaps the most disadvantaged with the original controls of the game as they are mostly problems that require us to go through many areas before finding the solutions and although they are well constructed they become stressful after a few hours.

The soundtrack is perhaps what I like most about this game, and although I can't speak in technical terms about what makes it so amazing I can only say that it sets the mood and complements this world perfectly, It is a mixture of classical and traditional music that makes us come back just to listen to many of its tunes and it is no mystery knowing that Lucasfilm invested heavily in this section to put the composer Peter McConnell (Monkey Island, Psyconauts, Brutal Legend) at the controls of the music of this title, a very wise decision in this section for Lucasfilm.

In summary, despite its difficult controls, Grim Fandango uses its atmosphere, its dialogues and the charisma of its characters to give us one of the most memorable graphic adventures in video games, giving a golden closing to the golden age of this genre and introducing us to the new 3D technologies and marking what is for me the beginning of the fall of Lucasfilm as a videogame developer, with the departure of Tim Schafer to found his own studio the company encountered several years of crisis before its purchase and subsequent closure by Disney, a giant of the adventure games leaving one of his last signatures in a videogame to frame in history, Grim Fandango ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you so much for making it to the end of my post! Grim Fandango despite being an adventure that I didn't like too much in its time has stood the test of time and I've grown fond of it after all these years, a great adventure from Tim Schafer and Lucasfilms Games, if you liked my post I would greatly appreciate it if you left a comment below!!!